TMC Group
Experience Design · Early Career · Global
Global Tech Quest
the escape room that
changed everything.
A bespoke 90-minute puzzle experience designed for 360 early career professionals, built from scratch to close out a two-day global programme with something participants would still be talking about the next day.
CLIENT
Oracle
PARTICIPANTS
360
DURATION
90 minutes
LOCATION
San Francisco
360
Participants across 72 simultaneous teams
90
Minutes start to finish
5
Interconnected Puzzles
5
Countries represented
THE BRIEF
End on a high.
Leave a memory that lasts.
TMC Group partners with Oracle to run an annual global early career programme, bringing together over 360 new hires for a two-day residential event. The days are full: speaker sessions, leadership panels, workshops and volunteering. By Day 2 afternoon, energy can dip and momentum can stall.
The brief to TMC Group was clear: design a closing experience that tied together the themes of the programme, got people moving, built connection across the cohort and ended on a high. It needed to work for 360 people simultaneously in a conference space, require no specialist facilitation, and feel genuinely exciting rather than like another scheduled activity.
The design constraint: the activity had to be self-led, scalable to 72 simultaneous teams, meaningful enough to land the programme's core themes and wrapped up inside 90 minutes including the close. Every puzzle had to work first time, with no technical dependencies.
DESIGN PRINCIPLES
Five principles that shaped
every decision.
⚡Engaging, impactful and interactive. Every element had to pull people in and keep them there. Passive worksheets were out from the start.
🌍 Peer interaction and community building. The puzzles were designed to be unsolvable alone. Cross-table collaboration was baked into the structure.
🎯 Purpose-driven design. Every puzzle connected to a real theme from the programme: global identity, purpose, time, competency and collective achievement.
📐 Scalable and facilitator-friendly. Six Quest Keepers managed 72 tables. The activity ran itself. No tech, no screens, no breakdowns.
🏆Symbolic and emotional payoff. The final mosaic reveal and swag unlock gave the whole room a shared moment of collective achievement to close the programme.
PROGRAMME ARCHITECTURE
Five puzzles. One cohort.
90 minutes
The Global Tech Quest was structured as a sequential puzzle experience. Teams of five worked through four table-based challenges before the entire room of 360 came together to complete a single collective task.
01
The Global Code
Teams matched countries, capitals and flags using binary-to-ASCII decoding. When all five pairs were correct, the binary revealed a code, representing the total number of global tech hires globally.
Cultural awareness, global identity, cohort connection.
02
The Cipher Quest
Using a custom laser-engraved cipher wheel, teams decoded four encrypted phrases representing the four quadrants of the Ikigai model. Solving all four unlocked a Cryptex containing a personal motivational message.
Purpose-driven reflection, teamwork, personal meaning.
03
The Time Equation
Teams analysed a fictional character's weekly routine across seven Habit Hotspots, decoded a hidden message and unlocked a journal safe using the code 168, the number of hours in a week.
Time management, self-awareness, intentional living.
04
The Growth Circuit
Teams played a bespoke Uno-style card game built around Oracle's core competency framework. Prompts, wild cards and reflection questions wove learning into competitive play. Completion earned each team a mosaic tile.
Competency knowledge, communication, collaboration.
05
The Connection Construct
All 72 teams came together to assemble a large branded mosaic representing the programme's three core themes: Opportunity, Growth and Connection. Once the mosaic was complete, it triggered the swag gift reveal, giving the whole room a shared moment of celebration and cohort pride to close the two days.
WHAT IT ACHIEVED
The lasting impact.
Learning embedded through fun
The Quest wove the core programme themes, global identity, purpose, time and competency, into physical puzzle challenges. Participants absorbed them without sitting through another session.
Energy where it matters most
Day 2, post-lunch, with a full programme behind them, and 360 people were on the floor working in teams, completely absorbed. The Quest solved the closing-session energy problem.
A moment the cohort owns together
The mosaic finale gave the entire room a shared experience of collective achievement. It closed the two days with something participants carried with them well beyond the event itself.
Clean execution at scale
72 simultaneous teams, six Quest Keepers, no technology required. The activity ran on time and on brief, without a single failure point.
The highlight participants talked about
The Quest was one of the most frequently named highlights in post-event feedback.
 Every team received a sealed Top Secret bag at the start |  The bespoke cipher disc designed and produced for the Quest |  Teams working through the challenge together |  Sixty minutes on the clock, every second counted |  Decoding the cryptexone of five original puzzles |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 The final construct |
WHAT PARTICIPANTS SAID
"The escape room puzzle style event was awesome and really well done. We were all raving about it!"
"The way you found ways to integrate ideas and concepts we had learned into the decryption game was unexpectedly fun"
"LOVED the Global Tech Quest interactive event so much. The thought and creativity behind it was evident in every detail"
THE TMC GROUP ROLE
Designed, built and run
by TMC Group.
The Global Tech Quest was conceived, designed and delivered entirely by TMC Group. From the initial brief through to the cipher disc specifications, the run-of-show script, the Quest Keeper handbook and the on-the-day management of 360 participants. Every element was built in-house.
This is what experience design looks like when it is done with genuine care and original thinking. Not an off-the-shelf activity adapted to fit. Something built from scratch, for this cohort, for this moment.